Schematics of Pandora's Box

"Oh, that," Robert said. So Zabini had seen the flashback of Robert's past. If it had been anyone else who had seen that, he might have minded a great deal. Zabini seeing was something he could brush off. "I try not to think about that night. That was a long time ago, but in that one act, Greyback certainly changed a good deal for a lot of people." It hadn't been the kind of thing that anyone should have experienced or seen, not Zabini, and not the two small boys that had survived to tell it--or try to erase it.

"Fenrir Greyback was seeking revenge on my father for outting to the Ministry the fact that Greyback was an unregistered werewolf. My father did not apparently show much self control in the process and said a couple of unflattering things about Greyback that were enough to cause Greyback to want to strike back. So far as Remus and I ever believed, there are few crimes that are greater in this world than some atrocity against a child."

That had turned out to be one of the key things that Robert and Remus had both fought for throughout their lives in many ways, not that they had set out to do it. It had just happened. It was something they shared, that protection of the greater good, even to surrendering one's own life to it. It had made them shameless Gryffindors to the core for eternity.

He took another sip of tea, giving only a moment's thought as to what to think about the fact that Zabini knew something so sacred and secret, and something so key about Robert's own defense mechanisms. Oh well, the people close to him knew all of that. He could almost hear Kate telling him that he'd have never grabbed Zabini, never would have trusted him that far, if Zabini weren't somehow worthy of it.

"Of all things for you to get front row access to," Robert gave Zabini a bit of smile, making peace with it all inside himself. "You'd have thought I could have at least given you something better to look at. It certainly hasn't all been dark. There have been many times and people..." he looked pointedly at Apollo, "that I would not have wanted to go without in my life. Frightening as all that was today, I am very glad it was you that was there with me."

Apollo let his shoulders sag as Robert explained. It was worse than he'd thought, that image. He could never have pieced it together on his own, and now he felt sorry for bringing it up. He'd hoped that somehow, the woman had known Robert and his brother as children. Perhaps even to the extent that the Minister might not have remembered her, but she was using that moment to explain that she knew him.

Evidently not.

But despite everything Apollo felt about that choice, he felt stranger still about what Lupin said next. It was the sort of thing a person said to their best friend, or their partner, or their.. family. Or, he assumed it was, as far as the last option was concerned. And that made him more uncomfortable than he expected. Apollo really liked Robert. He probably idolized him too much, already, but something was stopping him from accepting the way Robert spoke about him. He didn't want to hear something like that from a father sort of figure. Not when his own was so detrimental to Apollo in general.

"I'm glad to know you're alright," he replied, genuine despite the anxiety rolling about in his stomach. "Just... don't take this the wrong way, but I think I need a couple days off. I thought I wanted to try and learn how to do that sort of stuff, myself. But I'm not sure, now. I want to.. read up on it, and to talk to my -- y'know," he faltered, censoring himself just in time, "to my family."

He nearly winced but somehow managed not to. If the Minister didn't see through that, Apollo would be deeply surprised. But he just hoped that it would be chalked up to a young boy lying to save face after being thoroughly embarrassed by his irrational response to what happened.

"Is that--? I mean, do you mind?"

He didn't fault Zabini for the sharp pushback that the lad fired. After all, this whole business was not part of any curriculum. Robert hadn't anticipated it, and he wasn't sure how he could have. He'd been attacked before, and he likely would again. That was something that Zabini, at his young age, unless when Zabini was small he'd been a child with a penchant for reading the Daily Prophet, would likely have known nothing about. Robert didn't expect Zabini knew anything about the things that had been covered in the papers. And then there were all the things that no one outside of Robert's inner circle knew.

A beginning healer always had at least one moment where they buckled, didn't hold up, and reconsidered. This was going to be at least one of Zabini's personal walls that he'd run into. And energy work was not a skill everyone had or even wanted to think about. Robert understood, he believed, what Zabini was feeling, and it made him feel paternal.

"Energy work isn't always so bizarre," Robert said. "She must have been a medium or something. I don't know yet. Most of the time, it's as routine as checking for a pulse. Here's the long and short of it, though, and you do need to know this before you go. Energy work is going to feel completely outside of your reality because your magical system is harnessing part of your otherwise muggle physical body. It'll look weird through your eyes, it'll sound weird, and it'll feel very disorienting at first. That makes you very normal. The way anyone develops energy skills is to learn not to fear it and to learn how to control it. Consider it a lot like learning to swim. Humans feel awkward with it because it feels so alien, but feeling alien doesn't mean its impossible."

He got up slowly, feeling tired but better, and went over to the tea pot and warmed up his tea. "Take a day or two to get your thoughts straight," he said, glancing out the door and seeing that the ER was still chaos. He saw the staff covering the old woman's body with a sheet bringing the gurney down the hallway towards them to get to the lift to take the body down to the morgue.

"You should have another sip or two of tea before you go," Robert told Zabini seriously, not able to look back at him because he was keeping an eye on where the body was. "And go out the front way for the next few minutes, will you?" Even now, the body made him uneasy, and he wanted it as far away from Zabini as possible. For himself, though, he presumed her dark energies were gone from her now, and he wanted to find out if she had any dark artifacts on her and then do the postmortem on her himself. There was still something unsettling about her that he needed to solve for himself, and if Zabini wasn't up to it, then Robert certainly wasn't taking him along. Besides that, if the press had found out about any sort of incident with those stupid black market portkeys, there would be some nosy Rita Skeeter type ready to see Zabini as young and juicy pickings for a news story. The lad didn't need that harassment either.